Thread: 8.0 speculation

Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Well that leaves us a few likely cases. One is said person left them a very specific outline for the original arc that happened to be good. One is this team has lost their touch. The last is someone had overhwhelming influence on DT who was more concerned with telling their own story than one about our main cast.

No. Stop.

I pointed out the continuity of writers to make it clear to you that your conspiracy theory is objectively and measurably WRONG and you should drop it. There is not some lost and exiled master who is the only person capable of making 'Good FFXIV'; the same people made the entire thing.

You need to accept and reckon with the fact that, rather than some grand conspiracy, writers that you liked made a story that you didn't. Deal with that fact, rather than making up your own.

Originally Posted by Cilia

Why the Ascians never scooped up the Key is a big question mark, but time differentials may play a part in why they did nothing about Alexandrian society; plus they would have no reason to do so, since it was just a reflection and thus doomed to rejoining sooner or later if their plot ever came to fruition. Is it perfect writing? No, but that's what happens when you don't have a plot mapped out from start to finish.

Moving into actual discussion, what we can say at this point is that the Ascians had some level of fingers in the pie of Alexandria. They weren't mentioned for most of that time because it just wasn't really important or necessarily clear to anybody for most of that story; Alexandria and Preservation were the main problem, regardless of how they got there. It was only when Calyx used some straight-up creation magic that the question of the Ascians became relevant, and the Scions jumped on that one real fast, albeit without much of an active pursuit angle. Knowing what we do now, we can reason that Calyx has likely been in contact with Halmarut since before Plan Zodiark fell apart; what exactly that means isn't clear, but the question is more on Halmarut's head than anything.

The Ascians--or at least Halmarut--do seem to know about the key, what it is and does. However, crucially, the Ascians wouldn't actually have reason to care except as an interim tool. The Ascians can already cross dimensions; they don't need the key to do it, so to them the key's instead a trick to throw at a pawn to further their own plans, like the Heart of Sabik or the treasure of Seal Rock. It would make complete sense that they'd just leave it with Preservation and then later Tural, because it's just not important to them by itself.

Originally Posted by Cilia

Why the Ascians never scooped up the Key is a big question mark

Do they need it per se ? I always thought they could just... travel between shards with no worries?

Beside, there is still something I can't wrap my head around regarding the key, and maybe the lovely lore nerds can help me here. If the key is just a way to travel between shards and nothing else, and it is made by the ancients, then it must have been made after Venat's decision to split the world into shards, but before it happened. How much time is there in that? And it would be one of Venat's followers, but not Azem as they were not part of this group ? Yet the key seems to react to Azem's stone ? So Azem would have had to know about Venat's plan, and decided to creathe the key before the Sundering ? And there's still the... why would Azem do that ? Why would they think ahead of a way to travel between shards for the future shards of their soul?

That's kind of why I think the key is able to open gateway between shards, but there has to be a main use beyond that. And I also believe that while it is Ancient, it was not made specifically by Azem, but rather that it recognized a strong presence of an Ancient soul in the WoL, which allowed the WoL to use it.

(And is it possibly Halmarut who told Zoral Ja to use the key to go to the Ninth ?)

Originally Posted by Cleretic

And to your Halmarut thought: I don't think Zoraal Ja would've been part of her decisions, for simple reason that I don't think he's that subtle or all that motivated by the Golden City itself. Now, Sereel Ja I could buy, but he's definitely gone off the reservation by the time of the alliance raids, and is completely outside the Winterers' organization now, if he was ever inside them.

Then, doesn't it just feel too convenient that Zoraal Ja's plan happened to greatly benefit Calyx's own? Or is it just that the Ninth always knew about this link to the Source, and waited for the perfect moment to use this connexion for their own benefit (which is the Winterer's benefit too)? Maybe this has been explained in the MSQ, I just don't remember it that well.

Otherwise yes, I agree with what you said about Azem, I remember we discussed this when 7.4 came out. That's what led me to think that the key has some other purpose, and it "just happens" to allow to travel between shards too. Or perhaps, while it wasn't made by Azem, it might have been inspired by Azem's power.
That still leaves the motive for the Ancient to create such a key in the air though. Unless it was made by someone opposed to Venat's plan, and hoped they could use it for the Rejoinings (thus an Ascian, although I still have doubts about who knew what Venat was doing)
I imagine most of September's MSQ will focus on the Ethos, how it came to Tural (and how to use it to send our companions to the Fourth too I guess)

Originally Posted by Mansion

Then, doesn't it just feel too convenient that Zoraal Ja's plan happened to greatly benefit Calyx's own? Or is it just that the Ninth always knew about this link to the Source, and waited for the perfect moment to use this connexion for their own benefit (which is the Winterer's benefit too)? Maybe this has been explained in the MSQ, I just don't remember it that well.

I wouldn't call that especially contrived as far as dramatic logic goes, no. For as far as the story goes, remember that Tural picks up this baton twenty years ago, and from that point the 'gate to the golden city' is a closely-guarded secret. (Which incidentally makes using it as the 'finish line' of the rite of succession very clever in a way I've never thought about; your goal is to find the truth about the thing you'd have had to learn about as Dawnservant anyway.) However, it's a secret that Sereel Ja knows, because he's the royal seer, so he already knows both where and (roughly) what the key is and what's in the Skydeep Cenote... which happens to play into Preservation's hands, because the entire reason Tural has it is because Robor and Alayla wanted to get the key away from them.

None of this really requires people to be working on any extra levels; it just requires one man with the right access and the wrong ambitions.

Originally Posted by Cleretic

I wouldn't call that especially contrived as far as dramatic logic goes, no. For as far as the story goes, remember that Tural picks up this baton twenty years ago, and from that point the 'gate to the golden city' is a closely-guarded secret. (Which incidentally makes using it as the 'finish line' of the rite of succession very clever in a way I've never thought about; your goal is to find the truth about the thing you'd have had to learn about as Dawnservant anyway.) However, it's a secret that Sereel Ja knows, because he's the royal seer, so he already knows both where and (roughly) what the key is and what's in the Skydeep Cenote... which happens to play into Preservation's hands, because the entire reason Tural has it is because Robor and Alayla wanted to get the key away from them.

None of this really requires people to be working on any extra levels; it just requires one man with the right access and the wrong ambitions.

To be fair, I had forgotten about Robor and Alayla giving the key lol. Thanks, that ties things better in my mind ; Turaal knew about the gate and the key, sort of knew the key could open the gate, and guessed what's beyond the gate could be a source of great power. So Zoraal Ja's plan makes sense on his own (backed by Sereel Ja), and it ties with Preservation's ongoing plan, which ties with the Winterers' plan.

So now what we still dont know is :
- Who made Ethos
- What was Ethos originally made for
- How Ethos precisely works

Now my next brain-knot : Halmarut's knowledge about the Solstice. It would work with the theory that some people outside of Venat's plan knew about the Sundering, but also knew that one scenario would lead to the Solstice, thus the need of a way to travel between shards. Yet, why would the Solstice be different than the 13 rejoinings that the Ascians wanted ? How is she sure about it ?

One theory I've heard about Ethos is that its an inversion of Azem's magic. Instead of bringing allies to oneself it draws oneself to others. And the movement between shards is ultimately a result of them technically being parts of the same world.

Incidentally, I love the image Halmarut gives us of the reflections, a bunch of worlds layered on top of each other, with distinct colour tinges.

Originally Posted by Layte_Aeon

Incidentally, I love the image Halmarut gives us of the reflections, a bunch of worlds layered on top of each other, with distinct colour tinges.

I love this as well! It's neat given that light is what split the star and held its reflections apart, because it's like a nod to a prism splitting white light into its separate wavelengths or colors.

Originally Posted by Touken_Ranbu

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression it was explicitly stated to be a creation of Azem in Days Gone By, Days Yet to Come:

"Oh my, how careless of our Azem."

Thus spoke Hythlodaeus, having ambled into his office at the Bureau of the Architect to find a crystal sitting rather conspicuously on a chair reserved for guests. Slipped from a singularly adventurous pocket, no doubt. He marveled at the way the light played on its facets, like the surface of a tranquil lake, and recalled the first visitor he had received that morning.

In Japanese it's even more blatant with the line:

手のひら大の、澄んだ青色に輝くそれは、朝一番乗りでここを訪れた友人のものに違いない。中に収められているのは本人作の「旅を快適にする道具のイデア、第十四弾」とのことで、その構造について創造物管理局長の立場からアドバイスが欲しいとのことだった。
"In the palm of his hand shimmered with a blue light, a creation of his friend--the first to arrive [in the Bureau of the Architect] that morning. It was an item to make journeying more comfortable*, and they sought out [Hythlodaeus'] advice on the structure."
*Quite literally "the 14th iteration/item" though I'm not sure how to word it naturally in English. It was by no means something Azem perfected immediately, regardless.

(Very rushed translation, please take it with a grain of salt.)

That's... basically definitionally not explicit. Azem made things to help with traveling, so yes this theoretically fits within their remit (except, as I've mentioned before, the reflections don't exist to be traveled to in their time), but nothing suggests this crystal--or any of them--were the key. Remember that crystals were just a regular storage mechanism back then, the fact that it was a crystal doesn't mean anything.

...especially because, as you yourself translated, the crystal in that story is blue which the key is clearly not. English's comparison to a 'tranquil lake' is more ambiguous, but also doesn't fit; the key's actually kind of a busy design.